So I have a site for a dance studio that I created approx 8 years ago. Didn't really do anything extra for SEO and I was using a lot of flash back then. However, the site still ranks very well which is easy I suppose since it basically just has to outrank other local dance studios. So now I am adding other locations, basically duplicating the original site and putting them in subdomains. Will the sites I put for other locations into subdomains still rank ok for low competitive keywords? I am currently removing all flash from the site and wondering if it is better to just put the other sites in sub directories instead of subdomains or would a wordpress multi site setup be better with the all in one seo plugin? The first location I added about a year ago into a subdomain is not ranking at all in the first couple pages but I addmidditly didn't put much effort into on page seo as the client just wanted something quick & as cheap as possible. Any tips appreciated!!
Are you planning to maintain separate and unique websites for each location or do you intend to basically have one website that then lists the different locations? If you are planning to maintain unique sites (perhaps with news, announcements, pictures, videos, etc unique to that location), then you could either do a unique site with it's own domain name or a sub-directory. You could do a subdomain, but I'd say your better off either doing a sub-directory so it's part of the main site, or a completely different site with it's own domain. If you are just listing locations and don't plan to be putting up unique content on a regular basis for each location, then definitely use sub-directories or even just blog posts. For some reason, I've seen Google respond better to blog posts than static pages when it comes to trying to rank well for different locations for the same company. Either way, be sure to setup local listings and citations for each location in addition to what you decide to do on the web. It will help each location to rank better and give additional places on the web for people to find the studios.
Thanks Lester! I will have slightly different (but similar) info for each location. I am going to setup WP multisite so the owner of each location and login and update/edit the info for their location. After searching a bit I have seen others recommend sub-directories over domains as you did so I will try that. The subdomain I have now for one location is not ranking at all but didn't didn't do anything much to help with onpage seo, just copied most of the info from the parent site. The client wasn't paying on time and just wanted something as cheap as possible so I didn't put much effort into it. I will do it the right way now and see what happens. thx!